1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to computer-based human resource (HR) management systems and, in particular, to a computer automated system implementing a comprehensive workforce-directed, human capital management inventory, search, and position matching capability.
2. Description of the Related Art
The cost and complexity, and therefore need, to effectively manage human resources has been long recognized. With increasingly sophisticated workforces of correspondingly increasing accumulated value, the process of acquiring, training, managing, and retaining a workforce, if effective, can preserve and deliver substantial value to workforce organizations, including employer companies and volunteer agencies. Given the ever increasing business and product development cycle rates and the scale and complexity of specialized workforce knowledge, the need for an efficient human capital management (HCM) system is likewise only increasing.
Existing human resource oriented systems generally fail, however, to provide a comprehensive system for managing and maintaining workforces in contemporary workforce environments. Due to the evident intrinsic complexity of human capital management, organizational management typically delegates the entirety of the HCM process to the human resources group of an organization. Conventional computerized HR groups accept this delegation as a design assumption for the HCM processes implemented. Such conventional systems are thus maintained largely separate from the workforce. As a consequence, the tools provided by the HCM system may not be utilized fully, or may even be ignored, due to the remoteness of the HCM function, unfamiliarity with the tools, and not uncommonly a distrust of the integrity of the data carried by the HCM system.
To compensate, relatively large efforts are required to maintain and update the data carried by the HCM system and independently train managers within the organization in the use of the HCM tools. In addition to the necessary ongoing costs for such efforts, the capital and operating costs, including initial customization and installation as well as ongoing maintenance, for conventional HCM systems are considerable. As a result, the management, training, and cost overhead of conventional HCM systems can be prohibitive for small and medium sized organizations and quite burdensome even for organizations on the order of a thousand to many thousands of employees.
Another common characteristic of conventional HCM systems is that such systems are typically designed to implement highly detailed and controlled management function processes. Members of a workforce of any significant size are viewed as being entirely subject to rigid categorization, on the assumption that the categorization is well-designed. In practice, however, typical HCM systems tend to fit members of the workforce into available categories often independently preestablished during some initial design of the HCM system. As a result, the often valuable uniqueness of many members of the workforce, which may not have been recognized or even existent at the time the categorization was developed, is lost to the HCM system. Such information, particularly where the information concerns newly developing skill areas, is further lost to the management processes that rely on the HCM system to best evaluate and deploy members of the workforce. While system reprogramming is possible, though costly and time consuming, the intrinsic and progressive variability of workforce skills will inevitably lead the ability to update the categorization capabilities of conventional HCM systems. Consequently, the timeliness and therefore integrity of the data carried by conventional HCM systems will always be fundamentally compromised.
An example of a rigid categorization system is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 6,275,812, issued to Haq et al. The HCM system described in Haq et al. establishes a highly controlled approach to allocating members of an established, comprehensively cataloged workforce to equally well-cataloged projects. The detailed skills of each workforce member is presumed to be fully and uniformly assessed on skills templates. Each project is equally defined in terms of the detailed project requirements needed by a project team member, as reflected on a corresponding project template. The HCM system of Haq et al. then operates to match skill templates against project templates subject to a project skills weighting profile.
The matching process described in Haq et al. specifically operates to identify those workforce members whose skills exactly match the weighted profile skills of a desired project team member. Additional skills and skills not explicitly recognized by the system are ignored in their entirety. Clearly, potentially valuable attributes of a workforce member not easily subject to strict, pre-emptive categorization are also ignored. As a result, the preemptive definition of a project team member skills and screening of candidate skill templates on an absolute scale against the project templates results in a very rigid and exacting evaluation of candidates.
While such an exacting evaluation is the stated goal of the Haq et al. HCM system, there are many limitations of such a system. As acknowledged in Haq et al., a sophisticated skill assessment is a requirement for the accurate operation of the described HCM system. The initial skills assessment is made, however, apparently unilaterally by the workforce members. The evaluation made by the Haq et al. system is therefore dependent on the inherent variability of the self-assessments. Thus, while the Haq et al. system may fairly represent the workforce in the aggregate, the fundamental ability to exactly identify “best” candidates for specific projects is extremely limited.
Even if the skills data collected by Haq et al. could be maintained in some way continuously with some degree of confidence in the quality of the data, the rigid definition of positions likely results in a questionable identification of the best qualified workforce members for inclusion on the team. The factors that may define a best fit for members of a team are, as is fundamental to human nature, not reflected by an identity of rigidly-defined, objectively defined set of existing skills. Rather, managerial or other qualified, subjective evaluations may provide substantial forward-looking value in identifying the best candidates for participation on a project team. The Haq et al. HCM system, however, precludes, as a stated objective, any such subjective contribution to the HCM system based selection process. The effect then is, as is characteristic of other conventional HCM systems, a lack of intrinsic confidence in the integrity in the underlying data as well as operation of the system, processes, and tools.
Consequently, there is a clear need for an HCM system that supports human capital management and planning in connection with a workforce in a manner that is continuously, reasonably and cost-effectively maintainable, and that operates inclusively to build confidence in the operational integrity of the system, process, and tools.